2017-10-27 - Noise Attack!

Noise Attack
Summary: Noise attack the Ueno district in the largest numbers they've been seen in in years. The Symphogear Candidates and their allies respond.
Who: Shigure Shiratsuyu, Tsubasa Kazanari, Lera Camry, Fate Testarossa, Setsuna Higashi, Nori Ankou, Niramo Umokeshi, Fuu Hououji, Garnet GM: Hotaru Tomoe
Where: Ueno Museum District
OOC - IC Date: 10-27-2017 - 02-28-2015

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (6)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR7lpclLIx8

Mid-afternoon on the last day of February. Blue skies. Cold winds. A distant, bright sun. Saturday is a half day, so the air tastes, at least momentarily, like freedom. Like promise. Like potential.

What a great weekend this will b--

A hideous wail cuts through the air.

It takes a moment to recognize it as mechanical: the tsunami warning sirens, rising to terrifying shrillness every few seconds.

The response in the Ueno District is immediate. In a remarkably orderly fashion (punctuated, here and there, by screaming toddlers), people seek higher, stabler ground. For the most part, in this area, that means clearing the streets and piling into the museums. Nice, sturdy marble and concrete -- a good place to shelter.

Normally sirens like these, when they go off, tend to spread like a virus, infecting adjacent neighborhoods, for any emergency great enough to warrant them is great enough to warn the city as a whole. Keen-eared girls, however, may realize that it's only the sirens around Ueno Park.

And keen-eyed girls may notice that it is starting to rain. A gray haze hangs over the trees, and the flecks falling downwards are, if not ash, then something deeply akin to it.

---

There is chatter on the Tuner comms, coming mostly from the Second Division Mobile Disaster Response Corps. Radio waves to some and telepathy to others, it spills through the air with its share of leakage -- they aren't trying very hard to encrypt themselves. Mascots, in particular, can pick up on it effortlessly.

<< We've got a Code Red! >>

<< This is the largest Noise outbreak in Tokyo proper in years! >>

<< It appears to be centered at Ueno Park. If they get into the museums, or onto the trains... >>

<< All Symphogear Candidates and any other available backup are asked to please proceed to Ueno with all haste! >>

Dr. Sakurai's distinctive voice cuts through the traffic: older, feminine, fun.

<< Be careful, giiiirls~! >>

OOC: You can't see the Noise yet (they're deeper in the park), but you are strongly advised to arrive transformed! Please hold
your poses for Tsubasa and Shigure, who get to go first. :)

COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe transforms into Noise Incursion!

<Pose Tracker> Shigure Shiratsuyu [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

The Shiratsuyu mansion lingers, everpresently quiet as it is undisturbed. Nary a speck of dust or misplaced object is ever seen in it, lending to an appearance of timelessness... and a lack of life.

Shigure is seated on a floor cushion, facing her mother as she watches her prepare tea the traditional way.

"This," speaks Narumi, "is the life you've chosen now, Shigure."

There's a soft breath from her as she shakes her head. "The life of a soldier. Not unlike one of our self-defense forces. You volunteer in service... you put your life at risk."

"That is a cruel way to put it," Shigure deigns to speak.

"But an ultimately true one," answers her mother. A shot of the small, long bamboo spoon tipping matcha into a mugwort bowl. She whisks.

"It claimed your father's life. It may yet claim yours. Do not ever forget that. Do not forget what you are sacrificing. Your time. Your ambitions. Your desires. Your future."

She sets the whisk aside.

"Your life."

---

Shigure is on a full sprint as she hurries out the Ueno exchange station, still in her uniform as she finds herself running her thoughts a mile a minute. She hadn't seen the Noise since that ill-fated concert that injured her and Kotori, that led her into all of this.

The waiting was perhaps the worst part, like not knowing when the kettle was going to inevitably boil over once more.

It's just like that time...

She grits her teeth as she stares towards the skies, feeling the first few droplets start to spill. She keeps running, even though her legs are screaming at her to stop.

It's not like that, mother. You're wrong. You're wrong...!!

She takes hold of the thin crystal at her neckline.

She opens her mouth, and the song--

Ma zweie an cloidheamh solais tron...

(Indefatigable light draws the awakened Claiomh Solais...)

--erupts into a column of light around which she accesses her transformation, erratic patterns of musical notes and lines juxtaposed upon hexagrammatical mandalas surrounding her body as the Relic spreads forth from within.

When the light subsides, the Maiden of Solais is there, her expression conflicted as she stands in her monochrome uniform; her tailcoat billows out beside her as she stares up towards the skies. The Claiomh Solais stands at the ready behind her, taller than she is, a menacing and ironclad greatsword of unfathomably mythic proportions.

My song is not an implement of destruction, Mother...!

She lowers her head for a moment to speak.

<< This is Solais. I'm at Ueno Park... >>

COMBAT: Shigure Shiratsuyu transforms into Symphogear Solais!

<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Kazanari [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

Tsubasa had still been at school when the communication reached her. The familiar voices of Tomosato and Fujitaka reached her first, buzzing in her earpiece, before they gave way to the playful voice of Dr. Sakurai. Even in a situation like this, the head scientist seemed to be joking around. In a way, it was almost reassuring.

... But reassurance wouldn't be necessary. In all the conflict between Chevaliers, Shepherds and what-have-you, Kazanari Tsubasa had never forgotten that this was what she had been born and raised to fight: monsters that threatened humanity. Monsters that let her swing her blade freely, without concern of those in the path of her sword.

Running to the garage, Tsubasa jumped on her bike and drove towards Ueno Park. She could still hear the chatter of Tomosato, Fujitaka, Sakurai and the rest, but she didn't bother registering what was said. Her goal was simply to reach the park as swiftly as possible, and as the crown of green trees started to appear in her field of vision, Tsubasa sang:

<Imyuteus Ame no Habakiri Tron...>

As the chant finished, light enveloped Tsubasa's body, her school uniform replaced by the armour of a Symphogear wielder. Jumping off her bike without bothering to park it (Tsubasa had very little consideration for her bikes, or her wallet), the bike slid into a nearby railing, as Tsubasa herself landed on her feet. Taking out her blade, she unsheathed the sword of Ame no Habakiri, as she stood up to face the entrance of the park.

"Tsubasa. I'm also at the park entrance. No sign of the Noise." Stepping forward, Tsubasa felt her hand grip tighter on the hilt of her blade. Once again, she was going to fight. Once again, she was going to sing her song: the song that brought nothing but carnage and misery.

"I'm going in." Tsubasa wasn't the type to rely on others.

COMBAT: Tsubasa Kazanari transforms into Symphogear!

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.

"Hmm," Lera Camry murmurs on the walk back from Juuban. "It's still cold, y'know? I like it. Even if it'll get warm pretty soon..."

She walks hand-in-hand with Setsuna Higashi, towards the museum district. She keeps a quicker pace up, necessary for moving through the crowds -- and she looks sideways. Setsuna can see the smile become a shocked look, as the wail reaches her ears. An unearthly, frightening wail, and then something else. A rain that starts to drop down... and something so like ash.

"Setsuna..." She looks towards where the wail came from, and her eyes widen.

A LITTLE LATER

The chatter from the Tuners is echoing in her ears. Lera Camry doesn't fly because she doesn't want to leave Cure Passion in the dust. She runs, instead, and Soaring Sky is out. The device-sword is gripped in one hand, crossguard gem flashing red.

<<I'm on my way! I've got someone with me.>>

She looks over her shoulder and flashes a smile back at Cure Passion. It's a little nervous. "I've heard of these things, but... only a little," she says. "They're strong. Be careful, y'know? We'll stick together."

<I'm ready. Scanning the area.> Soaring Sky chimes, then exclaims: <Ah! Straight ahead!>

Lera watches as the Symphogears make themselves known. She stares at the two at the entrance to the park, before she waves a hand at them both. "Hey! Hey, over here!" She knows Tsubasa -- after a fashion, at least. She was at her concert, with the Chevaliers. She doesn't know Solais.

As far as she knows.

COMBAT: Lera Camry transforms into Barrier Jacket Perihelion!

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (4)] has posed.

<<We'll be sending reinforcements of our own.>>

Adds a calm voice, in request to backup over the comms.

-=-=-

At the time, Fate Testarossa had been trying her hand at a pie recipe. There's a dusting of flour on her cheek as her hands work at the pie dough. She wasn't really a good cook. She'd just been inspired to try her hand more lately... as she adds in the raspberry filling she hears something on her head. Just as she hears a call from the other room which is getting closer to the thudding of feet.

Feito! Emergency! Amy's contacting the others. Something loud is attacking Ueno!

Zoom out and you'll see that Fate's apron has a happy looking dog embroidered upon it, its paws over the counter. A second voice joins in, "It's not that it's loud! It's Noise!"

With a tug of the strings by berry stained hands, she slides it off over her head, and starts jogging towards the window. "Right! That's what I said."

As she does... <<Get Set. Drive Ignition.>>

Her next step had the kitchen alit wih a golden helix of light, arcing electricity and...

Not even a last forlorn glance at the half made pie as she slides the window up and takes off just as Arf finally slides into the room. "Anyhow you should really get down t- Oh she's already left."

-=-=-

She's there startlingly quickly. From her perch atop a cherry blossom tree at the edge of the park, her eyes flit over the area looking for civilians that may still be caught out there. A piece of ash falls on her nose. Blinking, she rubs it off, the faint scent of raspberry is gone, covered by something she doesn't like.

Flexing her hands, her armored gauntlets scrape over Bardiche's haft.

"Something terrible is happening here. Let's go Bardiche."

What else would her Device do, but ping, <Yes Sir.>

A voice in her head gently prompts, <<Follow the lead of the Symphogear Candidates. You've already met one of them.>> She replies with a simple, <<Hai.>> as she takes off and floats into the park. An orange flash overhead causes her to swiftly join up with Lera and Cure Passion. "Lera. Cure Passion."

Her eyes move down to both candidates and slowly she just nods at Tsubasa and the Maiden of Solais as she floats in the air. Given Tsubasa's way of doing things she doesn't expect much guidance. "We're here to help, however we can." That's all she says.

%

COMBAT: Fate Testarossa transforms into Barrier Jacket Assault!

<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Higashi [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

Juuban Middle student Setsuna Higashi is in her uniform still, still out on the half-day in Shitamachi where her school is, her tennis racquet hung over her shoulder with her bag as she walks throuh Ueno. Her uniform... could be warmer, but that's what the extra coat over it is for, the scarf about her neck. Violet and red, of course.

How much longer will she be wearing the middle school uniform?

"...Cold's not so bad if you're not alone," Setsuna agrees amiably--quietly--with Lera. She is not a fan of cold. ...SHe is also not a fan of the sudden wail, as she watches Lera's expression shift. She does not watch her own chane from placid to concerned, eyes focusing towards the source. Rain... Ash...

"Lera," she murmurs back, narrowing her eyes in turn.

Cure Passion is running alongside Lera Camry, and while she doesn't hear the voices on this band herself, she knows full well where they come from. "...I hope it's not a problem," she worries, and she isn't talking about the monsters--despite the fact that she's running towards the danger, the Tuners make her nervous.

"Mm!" she answers Lera's caution. "Right. No undue risks alone."

Sy chimes in, and Passion stops short to watch the two and their incredible display, her pink hair flyng out behind her. SHe... doesn't know either of them.

So she doesn't wave. She just jumps up to approach the others. She starts to move-but Tsubasa says she's just going in, and Cure Passion watches her before glancing to the others. ...They're all going, right?"

Fate seems to be already in on what to do here. She doesn't bother voicing her support. She prefers in this case to act.

She adopts a ready position, and glances to the others. "...On your mark," she says.

COMBAT: Setsuna Higashi transforms into Cure Passion!

<Pose Tracker> Nori Ankou [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

"Something's happening in Ueno Park," Batiste tells Nori Ankou.

Nori Ankou, who had been enjoying a bowl of seafood ramen (extra large, being shared with Batiste), looks at him a little flat-eyed.

Batiste stuffs his mouth full with a scallop. "mmffghhsqueep!" (subtitle: No time to explain! Come on!)

Nori sighs a little to herself. She had been hoping to go to the aquarium later, but needs must - when the NOISE drives!

-=-=-=-=-

"I don't like this rain," Batiste says, perching on the shoulder of la Sirene de Diamant.

La Sirene de Diamant is skipping across the rooftops, litten by her strange aura. She sails through the air with her arms spread, like a ballerina in a swiftly tilting planet. "I thought it was snow," she answers the otter.

"I don't think so," Batiste murmurs, darkly.

COMBAT: Nori Ankou transforms into La Sirene de Diamant!

<Pose Tracker> Niramo Umokeshi [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.

A young 13 year old girl was exploring the Ueno Zoo on this last day of Feburary, braving the cold winds to examine several caged birds of pray. A sketchpad and a shading pencil were in hand, and her body was turned so as to shield her pad from the grasping bluster. "So, an eagle looks like that...geeze, I was way off of my drawing. I got the feathers all wrong..." Niramo was mumbling to herself as she glanced back up towards a golden eagle that wasn't paying attention to her in the slightest. She was trying hard to keep the details in her focus, but it was simply too cold for her to concentrate. Sighing, she closed her sketchpad and placed everything in her bag, making sure to close it up tight to keep any heat inside for her little friend.

It was when she was starting to leave the zoo that she started to hear the tsunami warnings, and she looked up in surprise. "Odd, there wasn't any earthquakes in the news recently!" Frowning, she started to run for the National Museum of Western Art and taking a shortcut through a rarely used sidepath. So she was a little surprised when a floating mouse zipped out of her bag and hovered in front of her, making the Juuban girl slide to a stop.

"Takk, what are you doing? Those are tsunami sirens, if you're not aware. We need to get inside!"

"I'm curious as to how you humans can detect tsunamis but haven't you noticed? These sirens...they're only going off around this area."

"Huh? They are?"

As Niramo said this, a haze started to drift down from above, lowering her visibility. Niramo glanced around her cautiously as visibility started to drop, and the fact that sound from other people was starting to sound muffled and distant. Niramo looked back at Takk to comment on this, only to find him with his eyes closed and focused.

"Takk, what's this ash stuff? Uh...Takk?"

"Shhh. I'm listening in to the Tuners at the moment. Noise...with a capital N. Fear about them getting into public places. And a call for Symphogear Candidates."

"Symphogear? Oh, then that must mean Solais is going to be here then!"

"There must be a situation if she is being called for. And if the public is in danger..."

Takk would open his eyes and look Niramo directly in the eyes, before smiling slight as he saw her nod without hesitation.

"Ask for advice on the Noise when you spot Symphogear Solais and any allies she has with her. I...don't have much to tell you."

"Right, right, like you said. Know your enemy and all that. I'll be careful, I promise!"

Niramo rolled her eyes as she made her promise, before kneeling down to make sure her anklet was free. "Right then. Takk! Tail, Sprout!"

---

It was a mouse-themed magical girl that arrived late at the entrance of the park. She figured it was best to hop over the fence and head for where any support would start to gather instead of trying to rush through the ash haze and rain by herself. She came to a stop as she neared the others, and her eyes quickly landed on Solais. She raised a hand and waved in greeting, but would be surprisingly quiet. She wasn't quite sure what to expect from how Tuners ran their operations, as she thought of this.

COMBAT: Niramo Umokeshi transforms into Sourisi!

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

With a pleasantly successful shopping trip behind her, Fuu Hououji was on her way back towards Tama by way of Ueno - debating whether to stop by the library or simply take in one of the museums. She'd have to leave her purchases somewhere such as a coin locker, but ...

When the tsunami sirens kick in, all thoughts of a restful afternoon are promptly put on the back burner. Fuu knows she ought to focus on getting back out of the Ueno district as soon as possible - not even worry about necessarily going the rest of the way to Tama, just evacuate as necessary - but there's something which doesn't add up. She's pulling out her smartphone to try and figure out what it *is*, when a couple of things happen in rapid succession.

The first is several flecks of something alighting on the screen. Fuu uses her sleeve to try and wipe them off - and then blinks as the 'droplets' are instead powder.

The second is a certain egg-shaped, rabbit-eared fluffball that bounds past, alighting on a streetlight ahead of Fuu and then leaping across the street, with a cheery call of "Puu pu pu puuu~!" ... and as Fuu watches Mokona go, she realizes that the Magic Knights' guide is headed further into Ueno - not away from it.

"So it's not a tsunami ... ?"

One convenient hiding place (and transformation) later, the Magic Knight of Wind is following in Mokona's footsteps, as close to 'literally' as the Rooftop Express permits. The sight of other magical girls congregating ahead - some roof-hopping, some outright flying - confirms that she's headed in the right direction. Not all of them are familiar, but that's hardly a critical factor, is it? But one question *is* weighing on her mind now:

Unless the tsunami sirens went off by sheer coincidence, *somebody* must have set the alarm in motion to clear out this part of the city. But most monster attacks don't draw that kind of official or semi-official attention - maybe somebody hacked the system, but it seems unlikely. So, what kind of monsters are known to somebody with enough authority to warrant evacuating a large part of Tokyo in the middle of the day ... ?

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji transforms into Wind Knight!

<Pose Tracker> Garnet [None] has posed.

A page turns on a newspaper.

A tall, trench-coated figure with matching brown hat sits on an outdoor bench next to the Musuem proper as the sirens blare.

Their mirrored shades quickly scan over and finish an article in the business section that spotlights and interviews the local ice cream sellers, before putting the paper down. They stand up and look towards the park.

So this Future has indeed come to pass.

The figure unbuttons the top of their trenchcoat to reveal a black, pink and deep red star in the opening, and starting from there the trenchcoat itself melts away. The hat on the figure's head tranforms into a cubed afro, and the coat unfolds and vanishes into the figure's form, going down the arms last, When they reach the figure's hands and forearms, they begin to glow and a pair of red armored gauntlets appear upon them.

Garnet, leader of the Crystal Gems stands, revealed and at attention only briefly, ends her stakeout, and begins a series of leaps that will take her to the park, where her unique means of perception suggests a dire threat likely awaits.

COMBAT: Garnet transforms into Garnet's Got Gauntlets!

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (6)] has posed.

Ueno Park is huge, and beautiful, even teetering as it is on the edge of winter and spring. It's still far too early for cherry blossoms; the trees are ghosts of themselves. But still, there are ducks on the pond trying to get an early start at things, and the occasional crocus poking up through the grass, and the evergreen bushes, if flowerless, are certainly verdant, rampant. The park is thick with foilage.

It's from the other side of the pond that the first Noise can be seen, dimly, through the haze.

The creature is sublimely weird. It has bits that are sort of recognizable in function: arms, legs, torso. No hands or feet; it is contiguous, smooth, and largely blue, and its limbs are too skinny and smooth to really justify the upright stance of its stubby thick torso.

It has no face. From what passes for the head, to about halfway down the torso, it has something like a screen -- like a fly's eye blown up huge, it is compound, made of lots of smaller parts. They are all an ugly red, and no humanity can be found there, just a steady glow.

The gray dust is abruptly explained... when it reaches out with an arm to touch a nearby tree. Spreading from the point of contact, up and down the trunk, and along every branch and twig, the tree goes from vigorously alive (if unleaved) to gray and dead. A moment later, it shatters into dust.

It won't be blossoming ever again.

Another Noise joins the first one at the edge of the pond. Then another, and another.

More distantly through the trees, more spots of blue can be spied. There must be dozens of them...

Their name seems so inappropriate right now. The park is silent.

Dead silent.

And another tree dies with every passing second.

<Pose Tracker> Shigure Shiratsuyu [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

I'm going in, Tsubasa says.

Solais' eyes widen for a moment, perhaps not certain of how she should approach this. She stiffens for a moment as she gazes towards the Noise as they come, as they came before -- as they eradicate and shatter life where they find it.

She grits her teeth.

She looks to Sourisi as she drops down, letting out a shaky little sigh. "It's-- the Noise... I've encountered them once before. They touch and... eradicate life where they go..."

Father...

She reaches for the hilt of her sword, Claiomh Solais, wincing as she brings it to bear. It feels extraordinarily heavy as a weapon of such might is expected, but... moreso than ever. It doesn't feel steady in her hands.

The Maiden of Solais swallows, and says, "I know we can do this -- Sourisi. Let's do this together."

Founnum gis kwa'an gal

(I beg of thee -- lend me thine ear...)

Ki skil ama zid mu-un sibar...

(My sincerest prayers and hopes do I extend...)

It's like that time in the dream -- her voice crosses the distance between the ordinary and the extraordinary, lacing each syllable with an emphasized pronouncation of power that swells upon the mouse-themed magical girl's power, should she harken into it and accept.

COMBAT: Shigure Shiratsuyu has used I Know You Can Do This! on Sourisi.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.

"Fate!" Lera calls out to her, as the girl sets down with her. She looks sideways, then flashes a grin at her, and holds up a hand -- making a V-sign in her direction. Then, she looks sideways to Passion, and nods once to her. "Mm-hm."

Her eyes turn, sideways, at Passion and then at Fate. She nods, before she looks ahead. She takes a moment -- just the briefest of ones -- too appreciate this. A year ago, she wouldn't have thought they would go into a fight together like this. That momentary appreciation, though, can't last for long. She looks at a grotesque thing, smooth and featureless, but terrifying. A mixture of technology and flesh.

Something in her gut twists.

It twists more when she sees the tree vanish into so much ash. Lera's jaw sets, lips forming a tight line, as she sees tree after tree turn into ash -- and the Noise coming out. Light flashes up the length of Soaring Sky. She looks ahead at the Maiden of Solais. Then, she looks at the Noise. "...C'mon, you two. Let's go."

She jumps up--no, she flies up. A flight spell propels her into the sky in a sharp, parabolic arc. The light forms a steep arc of orange-red, gold at the edges, as she goes airborne, and swings her own broadsword-like blade backward in both hands. The two-toned sword flashes, energy whipping up the blade, as she leaps down for it.

A magical triangle flashes behind her, as she cleavces it down. The sword strikes for one of the Noise -- and then a point-blank explosion of fire shoots down into it, with a brilliant flash.

<Inferno Slasher!>

COMBAT: Lera Camry has used Inferno Slasher on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Cure Passion [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

Cure Passion is more stoic than the type to greet the others who come to help; those she doesn't know touch on her nervousness, despite the fact that there's nothing wrong with there being some help here. It's needed, from what they said. But something about this stuff falling with the rain that touches on her hands...

It is not, it seems, a tsunami. The alarms bother Setsuna too; she's not used to this sort of thing even now, has not been raised on what those sounds mean and what is likely to happen. She's heard, but...

The beauty of the park is marred quickly by the bizarre creature. Is it a creature? Its blue... shape makes her stare at it, discomfort twisting her expression. The glow...

The dust. Passion's eyes widen as she sees the result of the creature's touch. Only after she hears her friends speaking does she incline her head. "...Let's go. We can't allow this." The three of them together, yes--and others...

Passion starts forward into a sprint, leaping upward, somersaulting mid-air, and whirling hard into a devastating heel-first kick dropped straight at what looks like the center of the bizarre creature. "Haah--!"

COMBAT: Cure Passion has used Heel Drop on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Sourisi [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.

It was what was happening to the trees, not the appearance of the Noise that really drew Sourisi's attention. Trees, that were dormant and waiting for the guiding love of Spring to arrive, became even more dark, and then simply fading into dust after a few moments. The evergreens made this contrast even more noticeable to her, as dark green faded into dull gray before collapsing in on itself. If these 'Noise' could simply do that to trees, what about innocent people...?

The vivid thought of a dear friend of hers becoming a pile of dust before her eyes froze the mouse girl for a moment before she shook her head to clear it. "Don't worry about what could go wrong, simply make sure it doesn't!" These words, spoken aloud, helped motivate her as she reached down and pulled her tonfa free from their clasps. Their wooden grips let her know that she can fight, and it was the sight of the other Magical Girls around her that filled her with confidence. This confidence formed a slight smile on her lips as she started to run in towards the nearest Noise, her tonfa flying out to catch it directly on it's compound eye.

Any lingering traces of fear that struck against her from the power of a Noise's touch faded completely as Solais' song reached her ears. Her steps became just slightly lighter, and she knew that she had to do something in an attempt to return the favor. Her weapons flew into the haze as their owner stood her ground, staying close to the Maiden of Solais. "That's right! We can all do this! Let's protect this park, and everyone in it!"

COMBAT: Sourisi accepts Shigure Shiratsuyu's I Know You Can Do This!, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Sourisi is Cheered!  Empower
applied to Sourisi!
COMBAT: Sourisi has used Crashing Tooth on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Kazanari [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

More and more girls had appeared, but Tsubasa didn't care -- or well, she did her very best to ignore them. Her focus wasn't on the girls behind her, but on the threat deeper within the park, hidden from her view. Sword in her hand, she advanced on ahead, actively rejecting the company of the other girls.

"Tsubasa! The other girls' are right there, if you accompany them...!"

Her uncle yelled in her ear from the Second Division Mobile Disaster Response Corps' communication line, but Tsubasa didn't listen to him, either. The grip on her sword's hilt grew ever firmer, her knuckles whitening and her gaze hardening.

The Noise.

She would never forget that day; her final concert as the duo Zwei Wing. Her greatest failure.

Her final memory of Amou Kanade.

Fueled by her own bitterness, Tsubasa advances further into the park alone. When ash begins falling from the sky like snow, the swordswoman only feels her spite grow stronger, because when she realizes that the ash is nothing but mere trees, it feels like a mockery to all those who died by the Noise. A sick joke that Tsubasa absolutely will not stand for.

While others might be disturbed to see such strange creatures, Tsubasa is nothing if not familiar with the Noise. Sliding her heel against the grass, she balances her stance and readies her blade...

In the background, she can hear Shigure singing, to encourage Sourisi. But that's not where Tsubasa's focus lies: her eyes rest on the Noise, seperated from her on the other side of a pond. To close the distance, she would have to...

Jump!

Tsubasa's empowered legs launched her into the air, before she made a rapid descent towards the Noise, as if she was a bird, diving from mid-air! She landed right before the Noise, and with a wide slash of her blade, she aimed to cut as many of them with a single swing as she could!

Wading into combat without concern for herself or the others, Tsubasa's blade cut through the Noise!

COMBAT: Tsubasa Kazanari has used Flying Swallow on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Lera Camry's Inferno Slasher, taking 26 Fatigue damage!  Lera Camry is Psyched!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to dodge Cure Passion's Heel Drop, taking 21 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Sourisi's Crashing Tooth, taking 14 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to dodge Tsubasa Kazanari's Flying Swallow, taking 22 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Garnet [None] has posed.

Even to one of Tokyo's resident aliens, these creatures look particularly otherworldly. But more important to the Gem Currently Known As Garnet is less what they are, and more what they're doing. Draining the life from the creatures of Earth...

Her heart wells with righteous fervor though her face remains cool.

The recent months have had their share of moral questions, but the mission of the Crystal Gems, the creed of Rose Quartz, couldn't be more clear on what to do here.

Garnet ends her arrival with a final leap towards a Noise bringing both armored fists crashing down on its cluster of screens.

COMBAT: Garnet has used Leaping Smash! on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (4)] has posed.

Flying along, with cape fluttering, she spots the creature easily. She's about to charge right in when- a tree disintegrates into grey dust. That stops her charge before it even begins.

The child's eyes wide at the display, tongue caught in her throat as she witnesses more grey dust floating down all around her.

In her hesitation, she listens to Solais discuss how they touch and eradicate life wherever they go.

The Noise suddenly takes on the feel of Death Incarnate.

Would she even leave dust behind?

But then her expression hardens, "I won't allow them to take more. Bardiche. Load Cartridge." <Cartridge Load.> A plate slides down the haft of the polearm. A revolver cylinder twists. Something pounds in. It sounds like a small explosion as golden mana begins to boil off her.

Mentally through the bond between Bardiche and her the two try to shore up their auto-protection spells to maximum. "Right." She says to Lera, as she flourishes Bardiche. She waits however a moment longer, for Tsubasa to drive inward first. The girl who is a blade.

It's hard not to admire her. Even if she remembers-

My mission is merely to fight.

That's why there's no need to thank or admire me.

-that it's not what Tsubasa wants. "Here we go."

And that's when she flies in at intense speed, in an arc to try to flank the creature. A bright golden flash of energy, right before she reaches the creature she turns in a rotational spiral, shifting the grip upon her hands into a vicious two handed swing of the polearm right into the center mass of the creature.

And a moment after contact- if indeed it does, there's a bright explosion, and a crack of thunder.

COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has used Thunderous Clash on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Garnet's Leaping Smash!, taking 8 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to dodge Fate Testarossa's Thunderous Clash, taking 27 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Fate Testarossa
is Psyched!  Stun applied to Hotaru Tomoe!

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

The Wind Knight comes to a halt as soon as she sees the monsters in action, her gaze briefly fixated on the tree as it goes gray, then crumbles into so much powder. Dust ... or possibly ash. No wonder somebody called for a general evacuation. If even one of these creatures were given a chance to rampage among civilians, the casualties would --

Her breath catches in her throat, the memory of five lifeless schoolgirls flashing behind her eyes.

If the corpses of people disintegrated the same way, there really *would* be no counting the dead from any of these monsters running loose ... and that is all the Magic Knight of Wind needs to understand, for now. She's curious about whether they have a name or the like, but she can try to ask questions later of whomever counts as an 'expert' on these things. For now, the Wind Knight's bow and quiver materialize, in her hand and across her back respectively; if she has to join the fray in melee, her sword is little more than a thought away. For now, she nocks an arrow, sights in on her target, gathers her magic, and focuses her will. She's not content to simply take out one of these monsters - not if she can take out more than one at a time - but with her more courageous allies entering melee with the monsters, she can't risk area-of-effect spells. The wind picks up about her, ruffling her skirts and tousling her hair ...

"GALE ARROW!"

... and then her hair is whipped forward across her cheeks, the gathered wind wrapping around her arrow at the instant that she looses the shaft. That layer of magic both accelerates the arrow far faster than the bowstring alone, and stabilizes its flight against air resistance which might throw it off-course.

Power and accuracy. She needs both of them in this fight - and the Gale Arrow should provide them in sufficiency.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Gale Arrow on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

La Sirene and her ally reach the edge of a building in time to see lights coming in - and the erasure from life of that tree. Everything about it is taken in a single murderous moment and she and Batiste gasp as if as one.

"The park... why do so many things hate trees in this sprawling city!" Batiste wails. (Tokyo's total population is at least ten times that of the Sea of Tears entire.)

La Sirene de Diamant leaps from the last rooftop and soars, the dark inverse light around her forming a vast spreading plane - wings, perhaps, or at least enough to let her soar close enough, close enough to see the things, close enough perhaps to repel them.

These creatures are wrong, she can tell. Dark and horrid. They do not need to be wrestled or frozen or opposed. They need something more. A charm of long vintage, raised for its true purpose -

La Sirene's hand raises. The horns are raised. Her right hand rises. The light around her spreads and hums, producing a counterpointing echo. "Les Mysteres," la Sirene says, feet unsullied by the weight of Earth:

"COME!"

Stroke! Perhaps it is appropriate that the ringing noise, quite distinctly like a throaty power chord, ripples out; and the ink-black-silver emanation spreads outwards, as if to try and engulf and drown the Noise entire!

COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has used Les Mysteres on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly dodges Fuu Hououji's Gale Arrow, taking 21 Fatigue damage!  Fuu Hououji is Psyched!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces La Sirene de Diamant's Les Mysteres, taking 17 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (6)] has posed.
<SoundTracker> http://symphogear.wikia.com/wiki/Zett%C5%8D_Ame_no_Habakiri (Scroll Down, Hit Play on the Audio)

The silence is shattered utterly by the collective launch of the magical girls into combat. Since she went ahead, Tsubasa is the tip of that metaphorical spearpoint, and cleaves seemingly effortlessly through the front few ranks of Noise in a straight line that leaves them exploding in the wake of Ame no Habakiri.

Of course, it also leaves her surrounded, deep in the 'Noise-occupied' side of the park.

She might like it that way, but for better or for worse there are others backing her up, and Lera, Passion and Fate clear her right flank with consecutively orange, red and yellow explosions, while Sourisi, Garnet and Fuu each nail a Noise with a tonfa, gauntlet and arrow respectively, and the flow of la Sirene's Les Mysteres blows another several away.

Let's dwell for a moment on what it's like to hit Noise. For the most part people use weapons or magic, not directly contacting the Noise with their person, and in an eerie echo of what they do to living things, the Noise just kind of seem to come apart when slashed, smacked or 'sploded. There isn't any gore; they don't really have innards, which is both a relief and a reminder of their complete inhumanity.

Whatever they are, they seem almost destabilized, if anything, by attacks, and just collapse into nothingness in short order, after an initial resistance, as though their blobby skin is very, very hard and must be firmly surpassed.

Garnet and Cure Passion, however, get the special experience of actually going fist-or-foot-to-Noise directly and it is still bloodless but a lot more weird. They can feel themselves vibrate on contact; they don't turn gray, but it's as though the natural frequencies of their bodies, their souls, are in some way distorted by contact. It buzzes. It stings, though not viciously. Most of all it feels terribly wrong. Not like 'putting mochi in a martini that really shouldn't have had it' is wrong. Wrong like kissing a sister is wrong. No one is made to come into contact with Noise.

Now, on the far side of the pond, everyone is able to see what they're up against: those blue humanoids were only the beginning. There are dozens more, plus a second, even weirder type of Noise, like roughly cow-sized orange blobs with more of those red screens-for-faces.

They twist themselves up into spiral spears and launch themselves bodily at the outer ranks, desperately sharp and with enormous piercing force; then, into the chaos of this counterstrike, the blue Noise lower their head and charge, aiming to slam the unwary into the ground, into the pond, into the sky like a home run.

There's a ton of noise now, the regular kind; the girls calling and shouting to each other, Solais' brief invocation, and, rising above it all, Tsubasa's battle song, which seems to curl around the Noise, throughout the whole park, like something alive, something wonderful, something terrible.

It is the sound of victory -- and the sound of death.

COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Disruptive Frequency on La Sirene de Diamant.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Disruptive Frequency on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Disruptive Frequency on Fate Testarossa.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Cruel Harmonics on Garnet.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Disruptive Frequency on Tsubasa Kazanari.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Disruptive Frequency on Sourisi.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Cruel Harmonics on Cure Passion.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Disruptive Frequency on Lera Camry.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Disruptive Frequency on Shigure Shiratsuyu.
COMBAT: Shigure Shiratsuyu narrowly braces Hotaru Tomoe's Disruptive Frequency, taking 11 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Shigure
Shiratsuyu's Block ability activates!  Shigure Shiratsuyu's Parry ability activates!
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa perfectly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's Disruptive Frequency, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Dodge!  Fate
Testarossa's Fade ability activates!  Fate Testarossa's Flash ability activates!
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant narrowly braces Hotaru Tomoe's Disruptive Frequency, taking 19 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  La
Sirene de Diamant's Block ability activates!  La Sirene de Diamant's Parry ability activates!
COMBAT: Cure Passion narrowly braces Hotaru Tomoe's Cruel Harmonics, taking 7 Fatigue damage!  Cure Passion's Block ability
activates!  Cure Passion's Parry ability activates!
COMBAT: Sourisi narrowly braces Hotaru Tomoe's Disruptive Frequency, taking 6 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!
COMBAT: Garnet narrowly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's Cruel Harmonics, taking 29 Fatigue damage!  Garnet's Fade ability activates!
Garnet's Flash ability activates!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji narrowly braces Hotaru Tomoe's Disruptive Frequency, taking 10 Fatigue damage!  Fuu Hououji's Block ability
activates!  Fuu Hououji's Parry ability activates!
COMBAT: Lera Camry perfectly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's Disruptive Frequency, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Dodge!  Lera Camry's
Fade ability activates!  Lera Camry's Flash ability activates!
COMBAT: Tsubasa Kazanari perfectly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's Disruptive Frequency, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Dodge!  Tsubasa
Kazanari's Fade ability activates!  Tsubasa Kazanari's Flash ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Shigure Shiratsuyu [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

Solais witnesses Tsubasa's song in the distance, as the blue-haired Symphogear wielder charges through battle, tears on through with a seemingly effortless manuever. She's nearly occupied, before she shakes her head as Sourisi engages them in combat with her tonfa. Everyone's powers were... spectacular...

I, too, have to...

She takes a step, and-- hesitates.

What... why?

She closes her eyes and grits her teeth. Her fists clench.

"It took your father's life."

She stares towards the Noise, and notices the thick of the flock as they emerge, her eyes widening as she hears the frequency emanate and pierce through-- whatever song she had on her throat is gone, as she holds her arms out--

--and gets launched across the ground by blue Noise and slams against one side of a building, rolling onto the floor in her wake with a cough as she does so.

You have to!

Ki skil gagis to presia whanau

(Of earthly desire and boundless transcendence)

Ma zweie ranna kwa'an mana-af...

(We alight upon an ever-curtained paradise...)

The Maiden of Solais is next seen in the air, not so much leaping freely as she is carried by her sword -- and in a slow and difficult heft, she's twisted her wrist to swing the blade down and let herself be carried by it.

"Though all our existence be ever-fleeting --

Let this mind's eye pierce through to your nature, Noise!"

The sword's entire length shimmers with an emanation of light as she charges down, light floating in errant particles as she aims the heavy blade's point to one of the screens.

<Sword of Spiritual Perception!>

COMBAT: Shigure Shiratsuyu has used Sword of Spiritual Perception on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.

The way that the Noise just pull apart, collapsing so easily, is eerie for Lera to strike into. She hasn't fought something like that. She is used to the give of flesh -- or the resistance of something made of steel, stone, or altogether more alien. Soaring Sky swings through one more easily, and it flashes away into nothing after she connects. The sword whips around, and she grunts.

She spins the blade away from her, the sword rotating around in her hand, and then she turns to face the new Noise that arrive. She doesn't know what it's like to be struck by one -- and the spiral shaped ones charge in, before she leaps right over them. She flies up, and then comes crashing down at them. As she does, she slashes her sword down.

<Crescent Fangs!>

A quartet of energy arcs shoots off her sword. The superheated plasma flies down -- none powerful enough to blow apart a Noise on its own, but they threaten to knock them aside, smash them into someone's path, and smash them into the ground for a moment, as Lera lands on the ground in a three-point stance.

"There's no end to these things!" she calls out. She sounds concerned.

COMBAT: Lera Camry has used Crescent Fangs on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to dodge Lera Camry's Crescent Fangs, taking 16 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Stun applied to Hotaru
Tomoe!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to brace Shigure Shiratsuyu's Sword of Spiritual Perception, taking 24 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!
Analysis performed by Shigure Shiratsuyu!

<Pose Tracker> Cure Passion [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

Bright lights in the gloom, in the awful dust. It reminds Cure Passion of dreams, and keeps her as close as she can observing where the rest are while she fouses on her opponents. ...And focus she can't help but do, because--

Her foot collides with the Noise's form, separated only by thin material, by black and red and white. The music rises over all of it but there is wrongness in her there, something that makes her breath catch as it feels like she's rippling somehow. She can compare it to any number of things, but in the moment she knows only that it feels wrong as surely as the link between Labyrinth and Earth is at odds.

She grits her teeth and bounces back when it is destroyed. For a moment even the music she hears remains out of tune to her, sharp, before she regains herself and touches down in a crouch on the ground.

"...So that's how this is," she murmurs, looking up at the coming charge. She rolls back and handsprings upward, moving over a charge, and hits the ground to swing around at one of the largest with her foot hooking in an obvious kick before she spins out of it and follows naturally from her feint into a bare-handed punch straight for the center of a screen.

Death. Her heart pounds, and Cure Passion lets herself feel the bright power within her, of a little fairy so close. "Don't let them touch you!" she calls to the others, bracing herself.

COMBAT: Cure Passion has used Flash Feint on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (4)] has posed.

It's strange how it feels when she impacts them and zooms on by in her run over the noise. It doesn't feel like something alive at all. It fits into her feelings of them being an incarnation of death. Gliding over the pond, she stops suddenly, her cape flapping by her as she sees the multitude of noise.

She doesn't expect their movement. The way they twist themselves into two-dimensional spears.

Distantly she hears Solais' song join Tsubasa's. Two melodies, but they didn't feel joined as one. All the same, the strange harmony seems to jolt her to action.

Fate abruptly starts to move, in a twisting, spinning aerial dance to try to avoid each one. Up and over one. Down and under another. Pulling up abruptly as others zip by her.

The girl takes a position higher in the air panting slightly from the effort.

While she was growing more confident in Bardiche's ability to shield her... she'd rather not be touched.

Bardiche shifts at a mental command, <Haken Form.> The axe-head folds backwards into a thin and long hook. A blade of crackling energy lines it.

Spinning him abruptly, she cuts him towards a mass of Noise. <Haken-> "-SABER!" The two call, though Fate's is louder. The blade of energy detachess into a vicious spin. A celestial boomerang being thrown into the ground.

It's aimed so that it'll crash into one of these wrong feeling creatures, battering one into the next, into the next and toppling them like dominos. But even if it doesn't-

"Saber Explode."

The titanic explosion that throws up an enormous column of dust might do the trick.

"We'll make certain there is one - Lera."

Passion's warning not to let them touch her already bolsters up what instinct already told her.

Flying down closer to the ground again, she asks Tsubasa, who she knows is a veteran, "Tsubasa. If you lead us, we'll follow. What's the best way to defeat them quickly?"

The answer might be as straightforward as the girl scything into Noise ranks might make it seem, but she still asks, having no experience fighting these things.

COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has used Haken Saber on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Sourisi [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.

Seeing her tonfa turning back in the air after managing to nail a single Noise, Sourisi raises both hands to catch them by the grip. That is when the light vibrations from the Noise enters her, from her right tonfa and into her body. Her muscles spasmed down a good portion of her right arm, and it was more the shock of the sensation than the actual pain that made her cry out. She stared down at her right tonfa, making sure there were no lingering effects as the 'echo' died off as quickly as it arrived. "Ew...these things, that was just weird. Solais, you okay? I'll back you up, no matter what you need-Solais!"

As she turns and stares in shock as Solais is sent flying into the side of a building, she barely missed being hit by another blue Noise. Barely. Her hearing warned her in time, and she manages to twist back around and bring her tonfa back up to halt its' charge. She slid back a few feet as she slowed its movement, but it was the weird feedback, the 'echo', that flows in through her tonfa that worries her. Now that she knows what to expect, her muscles doesn't spasm as sharply, but directly touching one of these things is going to hurt a lot more. 'I need to get to Solais. Maybe she managed to block it...?'

The mouse girl shoved back on the blue Noise with her tonfa, pushing it up slightly and breaking through its' guard. A quick, one-two jab from her two tonfa was enough to make it split apart, and then she is on the move. Sourisi's eyes scan for Solais, catching sight of the cracks in the wall where the Symphogear Candidate had landed. 'She's not there, so where did she-there!' A flicker of movement from the heavens as the Maiden descended had Sourisi bounding for her, and the lightshow coming off the blade helps draw the eye even more. She rushed a group of blue Noise that was running in on Solais' landing site, preparing to deliver the same one-two jabs that helped take care of the second Noise she faced.

'I just have to grit my teeth through these weird feedback they have, I guess. I hope the other girls are okay!' "Right! Everyone, try to use some sort of weapon or magic blast to attack these things!"

COMBAT: Sourisi has used Mouse Flurry on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

The Wind Knight isn't so unwary as to get run over by the charging Noise; however, the sudden onslaught is a little too dense for her to dodge, and she switches to her sword, trying to brace against the impact - and more importantly, to take it on her *sword* rather than on her body, or even on her armor. The impact is still jarring, and it's only with great relief that she sees her sword is still intact - that the monster didn't somehow corrode the Escudo blade.

But that relief is short-lived; the combination of background sounds, Tsubasa's and Shigure's songs and the ambient maybe-supernatural 'static' of the creatures themselves, are rapidly mingling into a decidedly unnerving soundscape. If she closed her eyes, the green-clad Magic Knight is certain her brain would come up with no end of nightmare images - so she focuses on keeping her eyes open and her body in motion, making as little contact with the Noise as she possibly can.

Move quickly, strike efficiently, stay on her feet. It's a straightforward strategy, 'simple' to the extent that any plan of battle can really be simple - especially when it's already in contact with the enemy from the moment of her thinking it. She tries to close ranks with some of her allies; as she saw earlier, there are quite a few familiar faces, and the Wind Knight takes heart in that. And she's learned one of the names of the less familiar magical girls; she'll have to try and make contact with Tsubasa when the fight is over ...

But in the meantime, she carves her own path of hoped-for safety among the monsters, so 'alien' that it seems like no human could have imagined them.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Sword Strike on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to dodge Cure Passion's Flash Feint, taking 22 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Cure Passion is Psyched!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Fate Testarossa's Haken Saber, taking 20 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe perfectly dodges Fuu Hououji's Sword Strike, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Dodge!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Sourisi's Mouse Flurry, taking 15 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Sourisi is Psyched!

<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Kazanari [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

Tsubasa had waded into the enemy lines, her blade cutting open a path among the Noise for her to head deeper and deeper into the crowd of alien creatures. Her blade flashed like lightning; sharp, swift slashes that cleaved through the Noise. Ame no Habakiri had destroyed more Noise than Tsubasa could count, and the feeling of the creatures disappearing into red mist as her blade cut through them was by now intimately familiar and gave her absolutely no pause.

Without care for her well-being, Tsubasa just went deeper and deeper into the crowd of Noise, to the extent that the other girls might not have seen her in the sea of neon blue and red, if not for the flashes of her blade and her loud song. In a way, the song is beautiful, even as it is accompanied by the sounds of battle, but Tsubasa did not seem to enjoy singing it. It sounded out in unison with her battle, in a violent spectacle that seemed unfitting for the famous, cool singer.

Though it all, Tsubasa's song didn't stop. She elegantly and expertedly dodged the attacks from the Noise, even as she rolled forward to stand on her hands, large blades unfolding from her boots to create a spinning bladestorm. Returning to her feet with a move somewhat similar to a spinning breakdance one (which contrasted quite neatly with her traditional japanese song), Tsubasa returned to her feet, only to see a certain blonde hover down near her. Gritting her teeth a little in annoyance at the sudden disturbance, Tsubasa turns up to face her.

In a way, Tsubasa didn't mind Fate. They had met twice before, and Tsubasa didn't dislike her. That was a positive; sadly not big enough of a positive for Tsubasa to act nice towards poor Fate. "Don't get in my way!"

In a way, that was a reply to Fate's question.

"I'll take care of them myself! This is no place for..." Tsubasa's words were interrupted by her needing to slash a nearby Noise. "... those who don't know what they are doing!"

Clearly, Tsubasa had no intention to play nice.

COMBAT: Tsubasa Kazanari has used Wight Slayer on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to brace Tsubasa Kazanari's Wight Slayer, taking 28 Fatigue damage!  Tsubasa Kazanari is Psyched!

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

"They're like balloons," Batiste observes, but he doesn't have much room to comment. He is wishing la Sirene still had deep pockets for him to hide in.

The familiar form of Garnet in the distance heartens la Sirene. Then a huge spearing creature throws itself towards her and she hurls herself to the side, getting a scrape along the arm and a tumbling fall that dislodged her otter for a moment. She lays on the ground, glowing, for a fraction of a moment.

Then she rolls over and shoves herself back upwards. The noise is coming, as well as the Noise. Lera lands, as does Cure Passion. Don't let them touch you, la Sirene thinks.

Batiste squeeps in dismay. He doesn't want to get vaporized!

La Sirene doesn't get off her duff, though. The light around her fades as she turns her head, following that song - "Ah... There she is!"

Batiste frowns slightly at the attitude Tsubasa presents. La Sirene is focusing on something else...

... like how the permeating unlight of the Sea of Tears has soaked through the slowly warming soil and is now erupting upwards like a thousand tube-worms howling with unearthly force, aiming to clasp and grip the Noise even if perhaps they cannot bury it. Not immediately.

But you have to start somewhere!

COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has used Polyploia on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces La Sirene de Diamant's Polyploia, taking 8 Fatigue damage!  Tangle and Trap applied to Hotaru
Tomoe!

<Pose Tracker> Garnet [None] has posed.

The cruel notes rip through the Gem, and Garnet screams in pain, she leaps back to put distance between herself and the Noise. Back, and further back. The feeling she got on striking one was no salve against the dissonance of the Noise's cry, missing is the familiar thump of victorious force against a foe and instead a feeling of distortion, unusual for Earth but almost familiar though utterly unwelcome.

She steadies her head, and pulls herself together, guided by the notes of the twin songs flowing through the air. Complementary yet still distinct.

Garnet braces her gauntlets ahead of her, and with a gleam of transformative light, they detach and propel themselves towards the Noise, now as two missiles flying in tandem putting much needed distance between Gem and Noise.

COMBAT: Garnet has used Rocket Gauntlet Buster on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Garnet's Rocket Gauntlet Buster, taking 17 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (6)] has posed.

Solais goes up and then she comes down, and Claimh Solais itself runs the Noise straight through. As it dies, crumbling to dust, she gets flickering, lingering impressions of that final agony -- the oppositional nature of its existence to that on Earth and especially to her Symphogear. Where Garnet and Cure Passion felt discomfort at the merge of their resonances with Noise, Solais feels the way the frequency of her song annihilates theirs utterly. It feels as natural as breathing. That doesn't mean, however, that it feels 'right'...

Meanwhile an enthusiastic outbreak of teamwork leads to the end of more Noise.

While Solais is processing what's coming through her sword's conduit, more blues are rushing in, and Sourisi lays about, left right and center, as though she's using her tonfa to cast the magic spell 'transmute noise to dust'. That, in turn, leaves her a little overextended, but just as she's about to be in trouble, Lera's superheated plasma arcs slam the Noise to the ground!

Cure Passion's punch shatters one's screen, and it fades to nothing in a hiss of dust, Fate's saber gets the next.

La Sirene does similarly; her shadowy light pins one to the ground, and Garnet is well able to finish it off with her missile, which claims several others in the blast radius, too, leaving them smoking if not smoked.

Tsubasa meanwhile continues her rush through the Noise. It is, indeed, slightly more difficult to fight at her full potential with all these allies around -- she has more than enough skill to keep from accidentally ankleblading someone in the back or side but she might be killing a few fewer Noise per minute here because of having to avoid that. By sheer coincidence she takes out the Noise that Fuu's sword missed wholly.

Nonetheless, Noise are starting to be pretty thin on the ground.

Too... thin.

They rushed inwards at the magical girls when they first leapt in, but now -- are they rushing -- out?

Yes, with their arms extended to clothesline people as they go past, or spear through them again, in the case of the little orange ones.

Yes, and in opposite directions. About half are headed for the Train Station, and the other half for the Museum of Modern Art. Both are undoubtedly full of people. Either would be an unmitigated disaster.

The group is going to have to split up.

OOC: I'm splitting you up because I'm the GM and it's just easier and faster! Shigure, Tsubasa, Sourisi and Nori, you're off to
the train station! Lera, Passion, Fate, Fuu and Garnet, it's time for an afternoon at the museum! We'll all stay in the same room
here, but bear in mind that you'll wind up separated for now.

COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Chromatic Cascade on Garnet.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Chromatic Cascade on La Sirene de Diamant.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Chromatic Cascade on Tsubasa Kazanari.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Chromatic Cascade on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Chromatic Cascade on Sourisi.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Chromatic Cascade on Fate Testarossa.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Chromatic Cascade on Cure Passion.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Chromatic Cascade on Lera Camry.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Chromatic Cascade on Shigure Shiratsuyu.
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji narrowly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's Chromatic Cascade, taking 15 Fatigue damage!  Fuu Hououji's Fade ability
activates!  Fuu Hououji's Flash ability activates!  Stun applied to Fuu Hououji!
COMBAT: Sourisi narrowly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's Chromatic Cascade, taking 36 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Sourisi's Fade ability
activates!  Sourisi's Flash ability activates!  Stun applied to Sourisi!
COMBAT: Shigure Shiratsuyu fails to dodge Hotaru Tomoe's Chromatic Cascade, taking 43 Fatigue damage!  Stun applied to Shigure
Shiratsuyu!
COMBAT: Cure Passion narrowly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's Chromatic Cascade, taking 37 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Cure Passion's
Fade ability activates!  Stun applied to Cure Passion!
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa narrowly braces Hotaru Tomoe's Chromatic Cascade, taking 5 Fatigue damage!  Fate Testarossa's Block
ability activates!  Fate Testarossa's Parry ability activates!  Stun applied to Fate Testarossa!
COMBAT: Garnet narrowly braces Hotaru Tomoe's Chromatic Cascade, taking 5 Fatigue damage!  Stun applied to Garnet!
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant fails to brace Hotaru Tomoe's Chromatic Cascade, taking 32 Fatigue damage!  Stun applied to La Sirene
de Diamant!
COMBAT: Lera Camry narrowly counters Hotaru Tomoe's Chromatic Cascade, taking 32 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Lera Camry's
Reverse ability activates!  Lera Camry's Tactician ability activates!  Stun applied to Lera Camry!
COMBAT: Lera Camry's counterattack, Lanzebrecher, partially gets through, doing 9 Fatigue damage to Hotaru Tomoe!
COMBAT: Tsubasa Kazanari narrowly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's Chromatic Cascade, taking 12 Fatigue damage!  Tsubasa Kazanari's Fade
ability activates!  Tsubasa Kazanari's Flash ability activates!

<Pose Tracker> Lera Camry [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.

Fate asks Tsubasa, and Lera looks at her. She heard what Passion said -- to not touch them. She frowns at the response from her. "We're not--we aren't amateurs! We're not going to get in your way!"

She hesitates, though, as she sees them rushing in two directions. Too thin, indeed. Her eyes widen and she looks over her shoulder, calling out at Passion and Fate both. "They're headed for the museum!" she yells. She gives a worried look at the other mass of them -- and the other girls. She can't be in two places at once, though.

"After them!"

She leaps into the air, flying upward, and she swings back Soaring Sky. Light erupts along the blade, dancing across it. <Ready?>

"Ready."

She goes down -- coming at a sharp diagonal at the back of the mass of Noise. She slams into them, sword flashing out, left then right, and leaves afterimages of red-orange in the air as she tries to cleave through them. The clothesline blows still slam into her, as she gets smashed -- and feels that sickening movement when they hit -- but she slams her blade up into one. <Lanzebrecher!>

A burst of light explodes and she tries to cleave through its arm in one motion. Then, she turns, and drives her blade right at the midsection of one -- before she pivots, slashing at another, and then another. Each strike is punctuated with a flash, as Lera starts trying to cut into as many Noise as she can lay hands (or, well, blade) on.

<Regenschauer!>

COMBAT: Lera Camry has used Regenschauer on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Cure Passion [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

The music echoes for Passion as she spins, the motions quick enough that some air rushes past her too. Tsubasa's words come in too though, just before Lera's. Lera answers with her frown, but Passion, lunging in with her attacks, hears something different in them. Alone...

"Then we'll fight our own way," she calls back to Tsubasa, calmly. If she won't accept their help... That doesn't mean they're going to ignore what's going on.

But they.. are too thin. Way too thin. And suddenly they are out, and Passion's eyes widen. One comes straight by her and she dodges, and dodges the next--only to get hit hard by the little orange one spearing past her, slashin abou her side and sending her tumbling to the ground where she's trampled by more. She ends up coughing, lucky that she's not caught in it for long.

She looks up, and sees--"Ah--" Huff, "The museum!" The Pretty Cure drags herself upward to her feet, narrows her eyes, and takes off at a dead sprint after the others. "Haa-" She lunges and hurls herself among htem, trying to knock them off course, to prevent any of them that she can from reahing the doors.

COMBAT: Cure Passion has used Following Flurry on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (4)] has posed.

Fate doesn't seem all that flabbergasted by her answer, she knew full well what it was like to feel that way- "Don't be so proud! I know there are things people feel they have to do by themselves but-" And suddenly Noise shoots past her, in an attempt to clothesline her. Swinging up Bardiche in a quick parry, her golden shielding springs to life briefly, <Defenser Plus.>

The blow may be a glancing one, but it still batters her into a briefly uncontrolled spin through the air. Righting herself. "-we know how to fight many kinds of monsters. Don't sit us on the sidelines because we've never fought this kind. It'd be a waste!"

But suddenly, she notices where the Noise have gone, and seeing the throng heading off to-

Lera calls out where it is. Fate begins to fly in that direction and tries to shoot ahead of Lera, Passion and Garnet. "I'm going to try to cut them off!" She's not certain if her speed can match these monsters that are zipping around everywhere, but she has to try-!

She doesn't want to see any people reduced to grey ash. <Plasma Lancer>

A quartet of runic rings form in the air, as arrowheads of thunder are created within each. Following Fate along like small missiles waiting to be fired. Sweeping Bardiche in a slashing cut, she shouts, "FIRE!"

The four plasma infused arrows rocket towards their targets, but seem to narrowly miss. By all appearances it looks like she's firing them ahead of the Noise ranks, towards the Museum itself-

Raising a hand upwards, she slices it down, "TURN!"

The runic rings reappear. The arrowheads just before they would strike the museum turn around within each ring. And then they fire backwards, right into the advancing ranks, trying to pierce through them in retribution for every time they've tried to pierce through them and slow their advance down.

COMBAT: Fate Testarossa has used Plasma Lancer on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Sourisi [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.

Sourisi started to feel amazing as the numbers of the Noise dwindled, both the blue and orange alike. The combined efforts of Magical Girls, both part of a team and solo members alike, all working together in a common purpose to defeat the evil beings that threaten innocent lives. As she dispatched her second to last blue Noise with a wild swing, the last one launched itself towards the mouse girl in a pounce. It was only Lera's timely save with a burst of superheated plasma that saved her, but the heat washed over her and she jumped back in surprise. Staring at Lera in surprise from her dynamic entry, it unfortunately left the unexperienced Magical Girl completely off guard as an orange Noise attempted to pierce her with it's spear.

It was a split second attempt to leap out the way that saved her from being a Noise kabob, but she was sent flying like a furball, crashing into and through a still living tree and to the ground beyond. The world shook and spun around her as she laid on the ground, catching her breath, and it took a moment for her dazed mind to realize that the Noise were leaving. 'Running away...n-no...wait, the train station! It's that way, and it's a tsunami shelter!' Sourisi complained softly about how the world shouldn't spin when she's on it as she managed to stumble back up to her feet, and she turned to go to the north to give chase. That was before she spotted Solais in a crater of her own, and looking like the world should just pause for a moment. Half running, half stumbling over to the Symphogear Maiden, she kneeled down and offered a hand to Solais. Sure, she was hurting, but Sourisi has seen her friend take several good hits already, and a helping hand was always needed.

"Solais, lets take care of these Noise. I think...I think you're amazing, strong, and with a singing voice that is simply astounding. You certainly got rid of those evil mist spiders when we were in a dream. You remind me of someone I know who is trying her best too, despite the trouble she has from her family. So i'll give you the same advice! Simply believe in yourself, and do what you think is right, okay? You're not alone in this, and i'm here with you!" Sourisi said this all while helping her friend up, not wanting her to get discouraged by the blow she just took. It's what friends do, right?

COMBAT: Sourisi has used Small Mouse, Big Help on Shigure Shiratsuyu.
COMBAT: Shigure Shiratsuyu accepts Sourisi's Small Mouse, Big Help, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Shigure Shiratsuyu is Cheered!

<Pose Tracker> Shigure Shiratsuyu [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

"Y-yes, that's right, attacking at range would be--" Solais' words are cut off from her reply to Sourisi as the Noise emerge forward once more, and she's forced to draw back with how painfully slow it is to yank the blade back into something approaching a tenable posture...

...too late.

The Noise strike once more, and Solais chokes as the Noise's arms clotheslines her -- fills her with a sensation of that innate wrongness and everything that seems to repulse life itself. It's beyond unpleasant.

The sensation only lasts a moment, thankfully -- unthankfully, it's because Solais has just gotten pounded up into the air, and then again into the ground as she skids against the ground and keeps rolling for a moment, cratered into her own wreckage.

I have to keep this up... I can't fall here...

Her head keeps stirring, but then she-- she hears someone, as she groggily shakes her head. "... father..." is something Sourisi can hear her murmur, in the midst of her daze.

But upon seeing who it is, upon hearing her, the Maiden of Solais clenches her teeth, trying to keep it together. Sourisi's inspiration hits her right in the heart, cutting through the doubt that's starting to take hold of her. "... I--I'm not alone... right... r-right!"

She holds onto her throat as she squints and climbs to her feet, coughing. "The train station! We can't let them reach that -- let's go!"

She's on her feet again before she knows it, and decides that the massive blade isn't what's needed here. Instead, she gathers focus in her hand as the sword begins to unclasp--

--and a gleaming length of chain emerges as the sword's hilt comes absolutely free, revealing the massive greatblade for the sheath that it actually is.

Freed of the weapon's cumbersome form, Solais takes hold of her newly formed whip and rears back, aiming for the frontmost Noise in the pack. Her voice still continues, strong as ever in song:

Becloud thyself not from the noble truths!

Let the lash of this edge be as a warning upon thee!

Unveil unto wakefulness, Claiomh Solais!

She holds the twisted coil up as she leaps, and thrusts her arm forth -- and the chain-whip launches forward to strike in a heavenly blaze!

<Heavenly Mirage Slash!>

COMBAT: Shigure Shiratsuyu has used Heavenly Mirage Slash on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to dodge Lera Camry's Regenschauer, taking 62 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to dodge Cure Passion's Following Flurry, taking 30 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to dodge Fate Testarossa's Plasma Lancer, taking 32 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to dodge Shigure Shiratsuyu's Heavenly Mirage Slash, taking 49 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

Again the Wind Knight misjudges, and while she's spared a direct hit by the Noise trying to lariat her, it comes at the cost of whacking her head against the ground when she dodges too abruptly to keep the maneuver safe. Her head is spinning as she rolls back to her feet, but she can still see which way the tide of battle is going ... namely, it's trying to leave.

"No - !!"

Despite her disorientation, the Magic Knight of Wind just *runs*, not giving the monsters as wide a berth as she probably *should* but too desperate not to let the pack of them escape - not to let even *one* of them escape. The sight of what their touch did to the trees is still vivid in her memory, and whether there's anyone in the museum or not, letting these monsters - these 'Noise,' she thought somebody called them - get away is an unacceptable outcome.

She can't outrun them, not without more speed than her legs possess. But she can do roughly what Fate did - attacking not with blade or arrow, but with raw magic. Desperation fuels her will, and she weaves the magic in her heart before giving it voice ..

"Storm-Dance of Kamaitachi!!"

She makes an almost-throwing motion with her hand as she calls out the invocation, thrusting her arm ahead of her and flicking her fingers wide; the magic ripples out ahead of her, a subtle breeze rippling through the air akin to the distortion of a heat mirage. Once it gets ahead of the racing Noise, though ...

It stops being subtle. At all.

It's a little bit like what the Wind Knight did when the protodaimon were chasing them down the shaft under Library Island, except at a more focused remove: the magical storm erupts in front of the horde of Noise, expanding and reaching out to shred as many of the monsters out of existence as she can.

But even as her spell takes effect, the Wind Knight *knows* it won't do all the damage she needed and wanted it to. Maybe it's the background dissonance, the mental static that stems from it; maybe it's her head being addled from that impact with the ground moments before. Maybe it's just that her focus wasn't what it should have been. Whatever the case, she channels what power she can into that spell - but she knows it won't be enough to end the battle.

They'll have to keep fighting as they go - a literal running battle, for those without the gift of flight - and keep striving to silence the Noise before they reach anywhere populated.

COMBAT: Fuu Hououji has used Storm-Dance of Kamaitachi on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to dodge Fuu Hououji's Storm-Dance of Kamaitachi, taking 28 Fatigue damage!

<Pose Tracker> Garnet [None] has posed.

Garnet deflects the arm of the oncoming Noise with a brief strike from her gauntlet, and manuevers around the opening it projects, as quickly as she can through the stunning reverberations of its contact.

She turns to engage it, anticipating it seeking her back in those critical seconds, but instead finds the back of the Noise itself, continuing its trek through where she was, rushing away from the conflict...

The Gem watches in horror as she realizes the Noise she's engaged with isn't the only one, that they are all seeking the easier prey of the nonmagical, and Garnet follows Passion, Fate, and Lera in stopping the noise who seek to make the patrons of the museum into their next victims. She bounds dozens of feet into the air with a high leap, carries the momentum of the drop down into closest Noise, attempting to punch through it hard enough to send a shocking wave of disruption into the ground below it, in hopes of interrupting the path of any other Noise nearby.

COMBAT: Garnet has used Strike The Earth! on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe perfectly dodges Garnet's Strike The Earth!, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Critical Dodge!

<Pose Tracker> Tsubasa Kazanari [Infinity Institute (11)] has posed.

How frustrating.

Surrounded by all these people, Tsubasa is unable to fight to her fullest potential! Her blades felt dull when surrounded by all these girls, swarming around her. A sentinel like her shouldn't fight surrounded by all these children...! No matter how much Lera, or Fate, or any of them insisted otherwise, the simple truth was that right now, Tsubasa couldn't fight to her fullest!

Turning to Fate -- the blonde was a child, Tsubasa shouldn't react too strongly -- she shot her a brief frustrated glare, to signal that she clearly meant that she was better off alone. "I said to not get in my way!" Tsubasa angrily yelled, losing focusing on her combat song. With her focus lost, she only narrowly managed to dodge the attack from the Noise! Frustrated, she clenched her teeth; this was exactly why she didn't want to be surrounded by amateurs when she fought! Their nagging served only to distract her! Gripping her sword, she raised it and delivered an overhead slash towards the Noise, watching it disperse around her blade.

'Kanade... Without you here, there's nobody I can fight side-by-side with.'

Raising her blade and her gaze, Tsubasa watches the Noise disperse, and how the crowd thinned out, everyone heading in seperation directions. Tsubasa, however, would accompany neither group. There was another herd of Noise heading towards Akihabara, that neither of the two groups seemed to have notice. Once again, Tsubasa went off alone, pursuing this large group of Noise.

"A sentinel fights, and dies, alone... Tsubasa Kazanari will not let anyone intrude on her battlefield!" By the time the other girls would have noticed that Tsubasa's song had disappeared, Tsubasa was already far seperated from the rest of them, waging her own one-woman battle against a large group of Noise, fighting without a care for her own life. Perhaps Tsubasa fought, hoping to die...

But the odds of any Noise managing to defeat Tsubasa would be less than zero.

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

La Sirene de Diamant raises one hand to give a slightly sidewise thumbs-up to Garnet.

Batiste is a buzzkill on this sparkle of friendship when he declares, "They're making for the station--!" But the unlight evaporates as la Sirene kicks herself up and starts running forwards. The mouse-eared form of Sourisi is given a passing and thoughtful glance, la Sirene's gait long and loping.

She also has an otter on her shoulder, who waves merrily. Otters and mice have no hostility! Right?

"This may feel a little strange, but - I hope it will help us avoid their touch, if it is so lethal," la Sirene says, a little out of breath.

That inverted light ripples out of her, then. More accurately from the lantern at her waist. It reaches for Sourisi, for Shigure, outwards towards - Tsubasa -

But it can't reach. It curls inwards, crashing with inverted fractal foam against la Sirene as she looks towards that lone wolf. "Huuh... I hope she'll be alright," she breathes, before looking ahead.

The clinging light of the depths of the Sea of Tears has a melancholy feel, but it also distorts the outline of one's image. Hopefully, the Noise are hunting by sight.

COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has used Vision Displace on Shigure Shiratsuyu.
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has used Vision Displace on Sourisi.
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has used Vision Displace on La Sirene de Diamant.
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant accepts La Sirene de Diamant's Vision Displace, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Accelerate applied to La
Sirene de Diamant!
COMBAT: Shigure Shiratsuyu accepts La Sirene de Diamant's Vision Displace, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Accelerate
applied to Shigure Shiratsuyu!
COMBAT: Sourisi accepts La Sirene de Diamant's Vision Displace, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Accelerate applied to Sourisi!

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (6)] has posed.

At The Museum

Lera, Passion, Fate, Fuu and Garnet are able to assemble on the great marble steps of the Museum of Modern Art, ahead of the remaining Noise. This was only possible for two reasons:

First, Fuu's magical windstorm did an extraordinary job of slowing the pack, especially in combination with Garnet's earthquake (which, though it destroys no Noise, does force them to avoid it, adding several seconds to their path) and--

Second, there is but a tiny fraction of the original Noise, thanks to the efforts of Lera, Fate, and Passion. They leave Noise sworded, lanced, and beaten, and out the other side it seems almost manageable.

Until, that is, the last ten-or-so Noise (mostly orange) change their trajectory. They stop rushing the museum... and start rushing each other.

A burst of light later, the sound of a terrible screech -- and a massive orange blob, itself half the height of the building, starts plowing forwards, determined to break the line!

Towards The Train Station

There are simply fewer magical girls pursuing the Noise heading towards the train station, and two out of three of them do something other than 'kick ass'. Though Solais' chain-whip takes out a wide swath of them, there are still more, and there are still more ahead.

They're still behind. They must catch up.

The train station entrance is a hundred feet away. Fifty. Twenty.

There are enough Noise remaining to require each of Solais, Sourisi and la Sirene to take out a solid dozen, each, in that timeframe. And some are happy to slow down, to screen for their compatriots, to reach out with too-long arms and try to slam the girls into the ground.

Start--!

COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Cruel Harmonics on Fate Testarossa.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Cruel Harmonics on Cure Passion.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Dissonance on La Sirene de Diamant.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Dissonance on Shigure Shiratsuyu.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Dissonance on Sourisi.
COMBAT: Fate Testarossa perfectly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's Cruel Harmonics, taking 0 Fatigue damage!  Critical Dodge!  Fate
Testarossa's Fade ability activates!  Fate Testarossa's Flash ability activates!
COMBAT: Cure Passion narrowly braces Hotaru Tomoe's Cruel Harmonics, taking 14 Fatigue damage!  Cure Passion's Block ability
activates!  Cure Passion's Parry ability activates!
COMBAT: Sourisi narrowly dodges Hotaru Tomoe's Dissonance, taking 19 Fatigue damage!  Sourisi's Fade ability activates!  Sourisi's
Flash ability activates!
COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant narrowly braces Hotaru Tomoe's Dissonance, taking 17 Fatigue damage!  La Sirene de Diamant's Block
ability activates!  La Sirene de Diamant's Parry ability activates!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe has used Cruel Harmonics on Fuu Hououji.
COMBAT: Shigure Shiratsuyu fails to brace Hotaru Tomoe's Dissonance, taking 46 Fatigue damage!  Critical Hit!  Shigure Shiratsuyu
is unable to keep fighting!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji fails to counter Hotaru Tomoe's Cruel Harmonics, taking 42 Fatigue damage!
COMBAT: Fuu Hououji's counterattack, Spinning Slash, fails to get through, doing 0 Fatigue damage to Hotaru Tomoe!

<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

They're cheating.

That's the only thing the Wind Knight can think about the Noise when she sees the survivors merge into one giant orange form (when were they even orange to start with?) and charge. By luck of her comparative slowness, she's closest, and in desperation, she brings her sword up (it materializes again at her will) and tries to meet the Noise with her blade's edge --

The next thing she's aware of is the length of her body being embedded in the face of a wall. It's *probably* the museum's wall, but she can't see anything clearly enough to be sure where she impacted.

And after that, there is no 'next thing' which she's aware of ... at least, not for a fairly lengthy while. If she wakes up, presumably that will prove that the rest of her allies won.

<Pose Tracker> Shigure Shiratsuyu [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

Shigure -- the Maiden of Solais' teeth grit as she keeps hold of the chain-whip aloft; her hands tremble from the impact of the attack, and she can feel her throat burn and dry up. It wasn't quite like this before -- she was using a lot of energy at an extreme clip. Her thoughts were starting to wander and go at a thousand miles a minute once more, gazed upon the Noise marching forth to the train station.

"I won't let you-- I can't let you...!"

The ferventness of her desire to stop them from harming innocents, coupled with La Sirene de Diamant's power influencing her in a shrouded barrier of afterimages, has her gunning forward on a sprint as she lands at the top of the plaza towards the station.

"I have to..."

She whips her head to one side, her eyes widening as she slams her whip outward and spins it around to bray several of the more minor Noise away. But before she can notice it, her inexperience with combat catches her--

--and an arm grabs her, threatening to crush her. Squeezes at her, inflicting that unpleasant, alien sensation of unlife into her.

"They took your father, before you could even speak your name."

"Ghh..." Shigure chokes as her mind begins to cloud, looking to the others. "D-don't mind me, just-- just stop them! Sourisi!"

"This is no life that you should be leading."

She grits her teeth tighter and closes her eyes, shaking her head. You're wrong, you're wrong, mother...!

"The best we can do is tuck our heads under the sand and live in ignorance, content with however little bliss we can have in this horrible reality."

"You're wrong!"

There's a final burst of light as the hand grabbing her is seared from within, enough to let go of her -- but in that instance, the transformation's magic has become undone, and Shigure starts to freefall into the air, her consciousness fleeting as she does so.

She gazes to the inhuman arm, more jelly and aberrant than anything she'd ever understood, droplets of rain flush against her face as she does.

"You must be wrong..."

The reality was just too horrible for her to stomach, otherwise.

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

La Sirene de Diamant does not like these odds, with several of the Noise turning back towards them; she does not like how many of them there are; and she certainly and especially does not like that they are getting so terribly close to the train station.

What are they? Where are they from? Why are they? All questions she cannot answer right now. La Sirene breathes in, deeper than she thinks she can, and raises her hands upwards as the light contracts around her, gathered up into a sphere - no, more of a spheroid - in between her palms. She is working without thought, on pure instinct.

She has to get all of them at once...

And what better way to do that than with a bowling ball?

Such is the loose shape that la Sirene has swaged together from the darkling light of a mysterious sea. Such, too, is the form with which she hurls it. The ball erupts in the midst of the Noise, however, erupting like the tube-worm graspers that had marked her earlier efforts.

Then she looks with dreadful fear towards Shigure for a heart-stopping moment--

COMBAT: La Sirene de Diamant has used Polyploia on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe fails to brace La Sirene de Diamant's Polyploia, taking 22 Fatigue damage!  Tangle and Trap applied to Hotaru
Tomoe!

<Pose Tracker> Fate Testarossa [Infinity Institute (4)] has posed.

Tsubasa's words stay with her... did she really disrupt her?

It prickles at her even as she fights with the Noise. Bringing her back to those days where she was cold and distant and fighting alone. If someone had tried to do the same with her back then, would it have hurt more than helped?

"It's too early to rest!" She replies to Passion from her position. On the steps of the museum their enemy congeals into a titanic blob that seems like it could crack the museum open like an egg.

And trample her quite easily. In this case she doesn't actually fly right away. Not having time, she ducks into a roll as the massive creature plows past, the debris scattering past her. Coming up from her shoulder roll however to her feet causes her to spring into the air, her cape whirling behind her.

If she'd reacted a split second less, or tried to fly up... she might be splattered against the building like a bug. She'd be the one who was crushed rather than the Wind Knight. She desires to help her but right now, she cannot. If she hesitates now the people inside are doomed. So instead.

Runic rings appear at her feet in mid-air. Each moment a new layer is added. More runes, more rings. "Passion I'm going to pin it down for you! You finish it off before someone gets hurt!" Or worse. The girl chants, "Arcus, Cultus, Aegeas..."

Suddenly in the sky are a half dozen glittering blades, each the size of the Great Sword. Bardiche chimes and it sounds like the tolling of a bell, <Thunder Blade.>

All of the blades descend amidst the blur of Passion weaving in and out of them at a speed even Fate could barely follow in her barrage of blows.

It's only after she's clear that she cuts Bardiche downward. A flash of lightning descends to the center blade, and like connecting an electrical circuit as a radiant web of energy, it flows outwards to each of the other magical blades- and if they had landed, shocking the Noise from within.

COMBAT: FINISHER! Fate Testarossa has started a combo targeting Hotaru Tomoe!

<Pose Tracker> Cure Passion [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.

Did she do the right thing, leaving Tsubasa to her own devices? As in the outskirts of her vision she sees the lone girl chasing a group on her own, Cure Passion can't be sure. ...But maybe she would have done the same thing, thinking the way she used to. ...Assuming she bothered with this fight at all.

The awful feeling of touching these things doesn't go away as she strikes; it worsens, making her feel nauseous, unreal. But she grits her teeth and keeps her focus, because her limbs are what she has, and everyone else is already working hard. She has to do her best.

Huffing as she stops on the steps towards the creatures, she looks towards her allies. "Good work Fate," she breathes. ate's said it's too early to rest next, and passion nods sharply. "Right!" But... the monster becomes something larger. What can they do against this? The way it rushes, the way touching them was still awful--Passion can only throw her arms out crossing one another, hold hersel in plate as she starts sliding backwards. Passion hears Fate chanting. She knows--

"I'll do it!" There's a sparkle of red about her, and then another, as she narrows her eyes forward, looking at where to go. The blades start descending--and Passion turns into a red blur, seeming to disappear entirely into nothin.

Strike, strike, strike--at points that might be weak, at points that might be strong, weaving and dancing amidst the electrical web with kicks and punches too fast to see.

Only after, in the wake of Fate's thunderous magic, does Cure Passion appear in a crouch on the other side of the creature, opening her eyes and starting to turn.

COMBAT: FINISHER! Cure Passion has joined the combo started by Fate Testarossa!
COMBAT: COMBO! FINISHER! Fate Testarossa and Cure Passion have used Combo: Thunderflash, composed of Thunder Blade and Passion
Flash, on Hotaru Tomoe.

<Pose Tracker> Sourisi [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.

As a hand rested on Sourisi's shoulder, she couldn't help but jump. Be it dazed mind or simply the feedback coming from the Noise that had clouded her senses, she had forgotten all about the other magical girls. So Sourisi could be forgiven as she stares at the shoulder on La Sirene's shoulder for a moment before breaking out into a large smile. It was simply adorable, and the fact there was an magical otter in this chaos was a blessing to the mouse girl. It showed that everything hadn't descended into chaos just yet. "I hope you're right. Just the feedback when I destroy these Noise are...uuuuugh." She couldn't suppress a shudder before she started to chase after the Symphogear Maiden. They have people to save!

Sourisi couldn't pause to fully watch how Sourisi changed her weapon from a massive, unwieldy greatsword to a gleaming chainwhip that blazed with cleansing light. 'Takk is so going to talk my ear off about that. He's going to want to know all the details.' Odd what you tend to ponder when you're trying to chase down a hoard of life-destroying monsters.

As the chainwhip cleaved through a large swath of them, it opened up a view to one of Sourisi's worse nightmares. A hoard of evil monsters descending upon the innocent, and her own words echoed in her ears as she leaped over the chain, trying to quickly make up for lost ground. The Noise were much too close, though. It was going to be a miracle if she could just make it there in time. Her legs burned as she pushed herself to be faster, to get there before the Noise...!

It seemed that somehow, luck was somehow on her side, having twisted around in midair to face the hoard head on. She wasn't sure what La Sirene or Solais would be doing, but...she can't let a single one pass. If one did...she's not sure she could forgive herself. "YOU WON'T HARM THEM!"

Unconsciously pushing yet more mana into her legs, the mouse girl charged at the hoard by herself, her tonfa spinning in her grasp. Not sure of what she was doing, but clearly knowing why, she pushed her urgency to protect and to serve those that can't defend themselves into her arms, and her tonfa responded. A pale golden light started to radiate from her hardwood weapons of choice, and she struck at the closest one with a twirling tonfa.

The tonfa hit skin, and instead of slowing down and passing through, it rebounded and seemed to spin even faster in Sourisi's grasp. She didn't waste a precious second watching the aftermath as she struck at the next one. And the next. Very, very brief afterimages of Sourisi appeared as she moved from one to the next, pushing herself to the limit. She couldn't even spare a moment to see what has come to her two new friends.

'Maybe...maybe afterwards, they will be okay. Please let them be okay.'

COMBAT: FINISHER! Sourisi has used Wild Claw Barrage on Hotaru Tomoe.
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Fate Testarossa and Cure Passion's Finisher, Combo: Thunderflash, taking 88 Fatigue damage!
Critical Hit!
COMBAT: Hotaru Tomoe narrowly braces Sourisi's Finisher, Wild Claw Barrage, taking 37 Fatigue damage!  Hotaru Tomoe is unable to
keep fighting!

<Pose Tracker> Hotaru Tomoe [Infinity Institute (6)] has posed.

At The Museum

Distantly, Cure Passion and Fate are able to see the intermingling of shadow and golden light, towards the train station.

At The Train Station

Sourisi and la Sirene hear the sound of thunder, and then a series of faster claps, as though someone is displacing air moving more quickly than sound.

At The Museum

Fate's Thunder Blades pin the giant Noise, pulling it backwards, away from the building. They sizzle and crackle, but it isn't enough to deliver the final blow on its own.

Fortunately, Cure Passion is there, there to punctuate each blade with another kick, another punch -- driving them more deeply into the monster.

Slowly -- agonizingly slowly -- it is infected by its own gray, and finally shatters, rendered unto dust.

At The Train Station

Shigure falls, and Sourisi is left with the devil's own choice: to protect her now-vulnerable friend amid a horde of monsters, or to save everyone else.

Only she doesn't have to make it, because la Sirene is there, there with her shadowy magic, which wraps the monsters closest to the fallen Symphogear candidate and binds them for a few critical seconds.

Seconds in which the little mouse is able to rush forward, end the threat of the Noise approaching the station, and then rush back.

The Noise steadily disintegrate la Sirene's bonds through this period; that same, infectious grayness, able to eat away at light and darkness itself. The first one pulls free -- the second -- the third -- and they descend towards Shigure --

-- but Sourisi is able to return in the nick of time.

A golden flash; the thwack of her tonfa hitting Noise.

It's over.

It's finally over.

The emergency sirens stopped some time ago, but now they give a little blip, indicating the end of the danger. People will be spilling out of the museums, the station, everywhere, very soon.

But there's more than enough time to get oneself, and one's friends out of the public eye.

COMBAT: Shigure Shiratsuyu transforms into Symphogear Solais!
COMBAT: Shigure Shiratsuyu transforms into Shigure Shiratsuyu!

<Pose Tracker> Sourisi [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.

Many different emotions were felt in those seconds that felt like days. Hope. Fear. Determination. Sorrow. And Joy. Each felt as she struck a new foe, and possibly left an opening for the innocents to come to harm. Yet somehow, Sourisi was in the exact position needed to continue, to stop these mindless fiends from getting past her. As she striked the last one down, she ran back to help La Sirene and Solais. One was struck in the back, another in its' 'head' as she leaped over it, and the last directly in the chest, Solais inches behind her.

Each blow also ran 'echoes' through her arms, and her body ached more and more with every one she took down. But despite the exhaustion and the sensory feedback coming back into her, she managed to survive and push herself.

As the last Noise faded, she turned around to give La Sirene a tired grin. "Thank you so much. If...if you haven't been there, then things could have been much much worse. I'm Sourisi, and...I apologize for not telling you my name earlier, really!" She raised a hand to rub the back of her neck, but froze as the realization that someone was missing dawned on her. "Solais! Where is she? Is she-" Those words died on her lips as she spotted the third person there, lying on the ground in the rain. No major wounds, and she wasn't gray, but Sourisi easily recognized her now. "Shiratsuyu-san...?" She mouthed the words in shock before she knelt down by Shigure to pick her up. "We...should move her out of the way, somewhere safe. I doubt we want to get stopped by the police after all!"

The sudden mental image of Sourisi talking to a certain police detective entered her thoughts, and she couldn't help but giggle at the image, despite how tired she was and finding out who Solias was. "But...really. Thank you so much. You helped protect her."

<Pose Tracker> Shigure Shiratsuyu [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.

Indeed, it was Shigure -- while Recognition Inhibition may have shielded her from the recognition of others, there was a certain closeness -- both between her as Solais and Sourisi, and her with Niramo, that seemed to wash past that into cognitive sense. The young ninth-grader is out of it, exhausted and drained of energy, but... at the very least, the Noise didn't get to her in a way that would be irreparable.

The crystal shimmers softly in the light, upon her neck. Its glow seems dim at this point...

If only Shigure were awake to see La Sirene's protective spells, and Sourisi's heroism, she would certainly be in awe! But she would seem out of danger at present.

<Pose Tracker> La Sirene de Diamant [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.

There is only one Siren who has not stopped, it seems.

There is a moment of silence, enough for la Sirene to breathe twice, before Batiste squeaks in delight, does a full body wiggle, and then raises his paws as the Noise fades out. The people are safe...

But Shigure-san is not.

Batiste leaps off, moving to the fallen girl's side. His body is small, but he can feel things, move Shigure's head if it must be -

"You need not thank me," la Sirene tells her. "There are enough tears in the world. I am la Sirene de Diamant."

"I'm Batiste. Um! I think we can move her -"

"Come then," la Sirene says. "Sourisi, help me. It's easier with another."

This is, of course, not la Sirene's first time moving a body.

<Pose Tracker> Sourisi [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.

The mouse girl smiled before nodding her head, both at La Sirene de Diamant, and then at Batiste. "It's a pleasure to meet you both! And I say thanks where it is given, after all, and it has to be said." Relief started to flood into her body as she knelt down to help La Sirene with Shigure. She would go for the legs, because she was simply shorter and it would be best if they carried her gently as possible in this state. "Hopefully she'll be okay. I don't know the first thing about injuries, so i'm counting on you, Batiste!"

It was clear she was anxious to get Shigure to safety, but she would take La Sirene de Diamant's lead, as she was the more experienced Magical Girl. "And I need to thank everyone later. All their actions helped us save a lot of lives today."